• deletedusercb
    1.7k
    Is the proposition

    falsifiability should be a criterion for valid scientific hypotheses and theories

    falsifiable?

    And for a different take on falsifiability....

    https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunction/falsification-and-its-discontents/

    Which includes an argument against the idea that

    using verification is a good heuristic for scientific research and conclusions

    has been falsified. In fact it is still pretty common.

    Some other criticisms....

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability#Criticisms

    I have also been mulling over whether falsifiability should be considered permanent. Or the state of being falsified should be. Some things seem to come and go, and does this matter for the idea of falsifiability? IOW the falsifying may be get falsified.
  • SophistiCat
    2.2k
    Is the proposition

    falsifiability should be a criterion for valid scientific hypotheses and theories

    falsifiable?
    Coben

    What does it matter if it isn't? The proposition itself is not a scientific hypothesis or theory, so you can't turn it on itself.

    This is a common but cheap epistemological critique: to demand of an epistemology to justify itself, to pull itself up by the bootstraps. Epistemology is usually offered as a foundational framework. It is not supposed to be self-justifying: take it if it works or leave it if it doesn't.
  • deletedusercb
    1.7k
    ve 1) I didn't demand anything 2) I find it interesting you assume it does not pass falsifiability itself. Perhaps you are right. I am not so sure it doesn't but I wanted to raise the issue. 3) if it does not, this means that a hypothesis about what works to gain knowledge need not be falsifiable. I think this might say something about whether falsifiability as a criterion should have veto power if it is not met. Especially given, for example, some of what was written in the first link about the practices of scientists. 4) I am sorry you have encountered people asking if falsifiability passes its own criterion so many times. You may find that in philosophy forums a number of ideas are repeated and people explore things which they haven't explored before, while you have,
    The proposition itself is not a scientific hypothesis or theory, so you can't turn it on itself.SophistiCat
    I can and did, I think it is interesting. If it turns out, for me, that it does not meet its own criterion and I run around saying it is useless and I've proven it, please feel free, in that case, to retort in the snarky, lazy dismissive way you did here.5)
    Epistemology is usually offered as a foundational framework.SophistiCat
    No, it's a theory of knowledge. Now obviously falsifiability is not an epistemology. It's a piece of one. Unless someone thinks generating falsifiable hypotheses by itself produces knowledge. If one can produce knowledge via means not included in your epistemology, this says something about the epistemology. And I agree, in a sense, since I think epistemologies are always mixed, in practice, not pure. Or better put everyone uses a mix. There are no pure empiricists for example. But, a lot of people seem not to know this.
    6)
    take it if it works or leave it if it doesn't.SophistiCat
    But this isn't my issue. My issue is whether it should have veto power ,should hypotheses that do not pass the falsifiability criterion be dismissed directly or can they also be useful. Falsifiability has been and will continue to be a useful criterion, but should hypotheses that do not meet it be ignored?

    Since you've been there, done that and can only see this all as common and cheap, please ignore my posts as I will yours. And let us neophytes who don't have it all down pat and want to explore stuff just go ahead and do that without the implicit insults.

    It should also be added that
    take it if it works or leave it if it doesn't.
    is, ironically, a lot like verificationism, which Popper did not like. So, why this would be good as a metaepistemology but not as part of an epistemology, it seems to me, is at least worth teasing out, for those of us who haven't worked this all out, yawn, long ago.
  • Janus
    16.2k
    I think this squares with Popper's view that verifiability alone doesn't qualify a theory as scientific. There has to be a way (experiment/observation) to falsify a theory.TheMadFool

    I think the only way to verify or falsify theoretical predictions is to observe. But when predictions are observed to obtain, no matter how many times, this can never verify that the theory is true for all time. On the other hand when one instance of the theory's predicted outcomes are observed, then the theory is falsified, according to Popper. I am skeptical as to whether a theory can ever be definitively falsified by one or even a few failures to observe predicted outcomes, though if predicted outcomes are never observed, then the theory would be rightly disregarded it seems.

    In short what I am saying is that I am skeptical of any certainty in regard to truth of theories, whether that certainty be thought to consist in either verification or falsification.
  • SophistiCat
    2.2k
    please ignore my posts as I will yoursCoben

    Um... ok. I certainly didn't expect such an overreaction to my critical response. I'll take your suggestion.
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